davearm2

Good thing I didn't do that, huh? In fact I expressly noted that two of the three teams ahead of the Cubs are the mega-spenders (BOS and NYY), while the similar-spenders (LAD, NYM, PHI, CHW) have been as successful or worse. So why do you include a list of all 30 MLB teams, even though the majority of them don't have nearly the same amount of money to spend as the Cubs do? And you did it again when you said this Those teams all have significantly lower payrolls, yet you just compared Hendry's work to their work without even mentioning the payroll differences. Perhaps I overestimated the board's ability to take payroll considerations into account without me having to spell them out more thorougly than I have. Or, maybe just yours. Haha. I'll go back to my original statement. Comparing the success of 2 different teams who have completely different payroll situations is pointless, yet you did it. You compared hendry to Minnesota (among others) when you simply can't compare the success of the 2 when they are in completely different situations. I've seen you do this many times with hendry. You constantly dismiss the payroll advantages he has and try to compare him to better GMs with much more limited resources and then say things like "all that matters is that he wins with what he says...it doesn't matter how he does it". Umm, well, yeah.... it does matter how he does it. A GM with more money to spend than most franchises is held to a different standard, whether you like it or not. It would be foolish to not hold him to a higher standard. Compare Hendry to teams with similar payrolls, and that's it. Don't try to ocmpare him to teams like Minnesota. You can't do that. It's like giving one person 10 grand to buy a car and another person 50 grand, then congratulating the second person for coming home with a BMW while the other comes home with a Saturn. I included all 30 teams in MLB for sake of completeness. So shoot me. Nowhere did I brag up Hendry for smoking the cheapskate clubs like PIT and WAS. That's all you imagining things that aren't there. I've repeatedly made explicit comparisons to teams with similar payrolls (NYM, PHI, LAD, and CHW). You're conveniently ignoring that that's been the crux of my argument all along.

Good thing I didn't do that, huh? In fact I expressly noted that two of the three teams ahead of the Cubs are the mega-spenders (BOS and NYY), while the similar-spenders (LAD, NYM, PHI, CHW) have been as successful or worse. So why do you include a list of all 30 MLB teams, even though the majority of them don't have nearly the same amount of money to spend as the Cubs do? And you did it again when you said this Those teams all have significantly lower payrolls, yet you just compared Hendry's work to their work without even mentioning the payroll differences. Perhaps I overestimated the board's ability to take payroll considerations into account without me having to spell them out more thorougly than I have. Or, maybe just yours. Haha. I'll go back to my original statement. Comparing the success of 2 different teams who have completely different payroll situations is pointless, yet you did it. You compared hendry to Minnesota (among others) when you simply can't compare the success of the 2 when they are in completely different situations. I've seen you do this many times with hendry. You constantly dismiss the payroll advantages he has and try to compare him to better GMs with much more limited resources and then say things like "all that matters is that he wins with what he says...it doesn't matter how he does it". Umm, well, yeah.... it does matter how he does it. A GM with more money to spend than most franchises is held to a different standard, whether you like it or not. It would be foolish to not hold him to a higher standard. Compare Hendry to teams with similar payrolls, and that's it. Don't try to ocmpare him to teams like Minnesota. You can't do that. It's like giving one person 10 grand to buy a car and another person 50 grand, then congratulating the second person for coming home with a BMW while the other comes home with a Saturn. I included all 30 teams in MLB for sake of completeness. So shoot me. Nowhere did I brag up Hendry for smoking the cheapskate clubs like PIT and WAS. That's all you imagining things that aren't there. I've repeatedly made explicit comparisons to teams with similar payrolls (NYM, PHI, LAD, and CHW). You're conveniently ignoring that that's been the crux of my argument all along.

Not that this in any way completely excuses the failures of 05 and 06, but something to consider is that those teams likely would've looked much different if Hendry had the authority/autonomy then that he seems to have now. Someone will correct me if I'm wrong but I have the distinct recollection that Hendry was hot after guys like Tejada, Beltran, Vlad, and later Furcal, but MacPhail wouldn't OK the sort of contracts required to seal the deal with those A-list guys. MacPhail resigns after 06, and boom, within weeks Hendry's signed two FA contracts (Soriano and Lilly) that were bigger than any accepted by non-Cub FAs, ever. Prior to that, the $28M given to a 34-year old Moises Alou I believe was the highest.

Good thing I didn't do that, huh? In fact I expressly noted that two of the three teams ahead of the Cubs are the mega-spenders (BOS and NYY), while the similar-spenders (LAD, NYM, PHI, CHW) have been as successful or worse. So why do you include a list of all 30 MLB teams, even though the majority of them don't have nearly the same amount of money to spend as the Cubs do? And you did it again when you said this Those teams all have significantly lower payrolls, yet you just compared Hendry's work to their work without even mentioning the payroll differences. Perhaps I overestimated the board's ability to take payroll considerations into account without me having to spell them out more thorougly than I have. Or, maybe just yours.

What you say up to this point is, for the most part, true - sure, we could nitpick, but generally, it's all logical. However, your further argument - that the Cubs have been to the playoffs more times than most people - doesn't really help your point much. You said that "Hendry's job is to put the Cubs in the best possible position to win the World Series every year. Period." But just because they've made the postseason 3 times since he's been here does NOT mean that he's put them in the best position to do so. I'm in agreement with Goony (I think it was him), who said that the Aaron Miles-type signings (the ones that cost a relatively small but nonetheless substantial amount of money for essentially zero or even negative value) are the most aggravating, and Hendry is guilty of more than enough of them. Those signings alone prove that he's NOT putting his team in the best position to win the World Series. Then, of course, there are plenty of other complaints, some more legitimate than others, that further demonstrate that Hendry has actually been underperforming, despite his 3 playoff appearances. I don't think anyone's suggesting there isn't room for improvement, and naturally not all of Hendry's moves have worked out. But what GM can't you say the same thing about? If you look at the complete body of work, though, Hendry's tenure has been successful despite whatever missteps one could point to.

Good thing I didn't do that, huh? In fact I expressly noted that two of the three teams ahead of the Cubs are the mega-spenders (BOS and NYY), while the similar-spenders (LAD, NYM, PHI, CHW) have been as successful or worse.

I'm not quite as anti-Stone as some here, but it's worth noting that he wasn't acting like a bitch towards the Cubs franchise prior to September of 2004. Precisely. Nobody had anything bad to say about Michael Vick before the dogfighting stuff came out, either. Seems to me that somewhere along the line, Stone got his sensitive feathers ruffled, and ever since he's had a juvenile and vindictive attitude towards the Cubs organization. IMO it is unprofessional and a very valid reason for someone to change their opinion of the guy.

I'm sure people will take issue with what I'm about to say and that's fine. As I see it, Hendry's job is to put the Cubs in the best possible position to win the World Series every year. Period. How he gets there, whether it be with shrewd trades, great drafting, superior player development, and/or successful free agent signings, at the end of the day it doesn't really matter. The result is all that matters. I'm also a firm believer that the postseason is a crapshoot. Any team that's good enough to get there, is good enough to get hot and win it all. You can tweak things here and there, but generally each team that gets into the postseason has roughly a 1-in-8 chance of being that team. Moreover, the work of the GM is basically over a month or more before the playoffs even start. What happens in October is totally out of his control at that point. So having said all of that, here are the clubs that have had the most success at reaching the postseason since Hendry's first full season in 2003: [u] TEAM APPEARANCES[/u] Boston 5 New York -A 5 Los Angeles -A 4 Atlanta 3 Chicago 3 Los Angeles -N 3 Minnesota 3 St. Louis 3 Chicago -A 2 Houston 2 Oakland 2 Philadelphia 2 San Diego 2 Arizona 1 Cleveland 1 Colorado 1 Detroit 1 Florida 1 Milwaukee 1 New York -N 1 San Francisco 1 Tampa Bay 1 Baltimore 0 Cincinnati 0 Kansas City 0 Pittsburgh 0 Seattle 0 Texas 0 Toronto 0 Washington 0 So basically Hendry has been outperformed by the behemoths (Boston and NYY), and a team that plays in a pretty poor 4-team division (LAA). That's it. He's matched the success of allegedly model franchises like STL, ATL, and MIN, and matched or excdeeded the success of similarly-payrolled franchises like LAD, Philly, NYM, CWS, etc. In light of the fact that the guy's batting .500 taking his clubs to the postseason, a success rate that very few other GMs can match, I have a real hard time with the "fire Hendry" warcry.

It'll be that much sweeter to watch the Cards miss the playoffs if along the way they unburden themselves of Brett Wallace and/or other nice prospects for 2 months of Matt Holliday. He sure isn't going to help them more than Sabathia helped the Brewers last year, and in the end that trade worked out OK from our perspective. Let these marginal playoff teams from the NLC sell off their future, I say.

We've been hearing this for about the last 8 years now.

When Pedro gets there he'll be wearing a Phillies uni, so hardly a Pirates problem. (And yes I do know who you were referencing.)

Freddy Sanchez's $8MM vesting option for 2010 is a real problem. Teams aren't paying 2Bs like Sanchez that much jack on the free agent market these days (just ask Orlando Hudson), so trading him in the offseason would likely be problematic, and as we know from last offseason (DeRosa, Wood etc), that sort of commitment would really put the Cubs in a bind.

I doubt the Cubs would commit a spot on the 40-man roster to Cashner at this point. That'd be one more guy they'd have to leave exposed in the Rule 5 draft come December. From what little I've read on it, it sounds like they'll already have some tough choices to make.

He's never had a professional at bat. He's the O's Secret Weapon. Unfortunately, the O's haven't had a situation worthy of deploying their Secret Weapon for over a decade, so they keep him disguised as a relief pitcher.

I think the Rangers are the perfect fit. They do have money if they choose to spend it. In all likelihood Blalock will be gone next year freeing up some more for them. For me the biggest question is do they want to give up the prospects its going to take to get him. They have done probably the best job in baseball the past 3 years in loading up their farm system. Giving up Feliz and/or Smoak for Halladay is a tough call for a young team that has a great future. To me the Rangers are built for next year and beyond not this season. The Rangers are not the perfect fit. In fact they'd probably be the first team you can scratch off the list. Rangers borrow money from MLB No team taking loans from MLB in order to meet payroll is adding Roy Halladay.

The idea behind a trade would be a team that felt someone would put in a waiver offer before them. For instance, the Cardinals might make a trade with the Red Sox for him if they believe the Cubs are certain to put in a waiver offer - as the Cubs' waiver spot is before the Cards'. I can't imagine the Red Sox would get anyone of any consequence at all in a trade, though. LOL, no. If any team put in a waiver claim on Lugo, the Red Sox' front office would let him go in a second, and the next thing they'd do is take a small chunk of the ~$22M they just saved and have a weeklong party for the ages in some sublime tropical locale. The reason a trade might be worked out (with the Red Sox getting some marginal prospect while assuming all but the league min of the money left on Lugo's contract) is because some team might prefer to offer up that marginal prospect than have to compete with the rest of the league to sign Lugo once he became a free agent.

Roy Halladay, the Jake Peavy of July: a tale... full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

that's because the season is over half over and Pedro's leverage is significantly less than it was if the offseason There was still reports as of a couple weeks ago of it costing 5 mil or so for Pedro. My point is it doesnt look like money was the reason for the Cubs not signing Pedro. Last winter the reports were that Pedro wanted $5M to play. He reportedly stuck to that demand, but it became a prorated $5M once the season began. Now the season's half over, and he's just signed for $2.5M (if he hits his incentives). So although the guaranteed amount is only $1M, the total price is basically the same as its always been.

Well said. It could be that Hendry and Neyer both understand the importance of defensive metrics, but only Hendry realizes there are no real great ones available yet that are more valuable than scouting assessments.

It would absolutely torch their relationship with the players association and every agent in the league. The question is, do the current owners who want out give a damn about that if it makes the sale easier? It wouldn't make the sale easier. Poisoning its reputation with the league/union/players/agents would depress the team's value to the new owner, and would surely create problems with the transaction. It would if I was Ricketts, anyway.

we have a lot to go off of. Fuld has a long career in the minors and has proven he can't hit. His career minor league line is .287/.370/.404. I wouldnt call that proving he cant hit. While its nice to have the high OPS guys at the heart of your lineup Id prefer the high avg. guys at the top of it. Ryan Theriots career minor league line was .271/.355/.337, and like him or hate him, he is becoming a very solid major league hitter despite the fact that hes not the high OPS type. Assuming what weve seen from Fuld is the real deal, a Fuld-Theriot 1-2 is more of a traditional top of the order with the big boppers coming up behind them. Am I saying that what weve seen from Sam Fuld is what we can expect in the future? Maybe, maybe not, but Id sure like to give him a chance and find out, especially while Kosuke isnt exactly smoking the ball. As has been discussed before, looking at Theriot's career minor league line is very misleading since he was awful as a switch-hitter 2001-2004. After dropping the lefthanded swing he went .756 in the Southern League and .746 in the PCL -- right in line with his MLB OPS of .739.

Let's see... go get a BJ Ryan type, or play Sean Marshall in LF...

Johan Santana is a lousy comp, for reasons already stated (player would only accept a trade to 2-3 teams, and demanded a $100M+ outlay once acquired). This winter we heard the Padres required a "Herschel Walker" type package for Peavy. 3 months of Sabathia yielded one elite prospect (LaPorta), one excellent prospect (Brantley) and 2 others. A much less accomplished (but also cheaper) Dan Haren netted the A's 6 players. Those are all much better points of reference for Halladay's trade value than is Santana.

Precisely. Better to give Zambrano two starts leading up to the ASB, even if one is on short rest, than a fill-in guy. It'll be cake to sort things out in the rotation after the ASB, when everyone (except perhaps Lilly) has had 3 days off.

It's not confusing. If any team in MLB wants to keep Patton on their 25-man roster for the duration of the season, that's what will happen. If nobody does, then either the Rox will take him back, decline to take him back, or a trade will be worked out in which the Rox get someone other than Patton back (or cash). That was the original question that I responded to - whether Patton would have to pass through waivers if the Rockies and Cubs worked out a trade. I said no waivers would be involved in a trade, you disagreed. Patton would have to first pass through waivers before the Cubs and Rox could discuss such a trade. My confusion (and sporrer's it seems) is that's never stated anywhere. The only way the waiver process would come into play would be if the player is returned to the original team before a trade was made. If that's the case then ok, but it's not clear on that point. You've got it backwards. The waiver process precedes the offer-back-to-the-original-team process. Look here it is: Patton is Cubs property so long as the Cubs conform to the Rule 5 restrictions. If the Cubs don't want to conform to the Rule 5 restrictions, then they have to put Patton on waivers. Any team can take the player, if that team is willing to conform to the Rule 5 restrictions. If no team is willing to conform to the Rule 5 restrictions, then the Cubs have to offer Patton back to the Rox. The Rox can say yes or no. If no, then Patton remains a Cub and can be optioned to the minors. If yes, then either the Cubs let Patton go back to the Rox, or the Cubs offer some sort of trade that would send someone else to the Rox instead of Patton. This is the only trade scenario involving the Cubs and Rox.